1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for encoding and compressing pattern data such as characters, an output apparatus for decoding encoded pattern data, and an output apparatus for encoding and compressing pattern data such as characters, and decoding encoded pattern data.
2. Related Background Art
An image forming apparatus, which stores pattern data in correspondence with character codes, normally stores character pattern data in the form of developed character patterns. However, when developed character patterns are stored in this manner, a large memory capacity is required for storing these patterns, resulting in high cost. In particular, since the resolution of recent printers is increased, and the number of dots of each character pattern to be printed is increased, the memory capacity for storing the patterns becomes considerably large. Thus, an image forming apparatus, which stores such character patterns in the form of compressed codes obtained by encoding the character patterns by an encoding method such as a run length method, has been developed.
However, since the above-mentioned conventional encoding method is a compression method for general pattern data, the compression ratio cannot be increased very much depending on the dot formats of character patterns. Some encoding methods require a long expansion time, and even when a character code is input, development of the corresponding pattern takes much time, resulting in an increase in print time for a printer.